


Of Castes and Honey

by Neotoma



Category: Books of the Raksura - Martha Wells
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-07 08:51:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5450681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neotoma/pseuds/Neotoma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chime, Moon, and honeybees.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Castes and Honey

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shelebum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shelebum/gifts).



Chime dropped a small book in Moon's lap. The book was not one of the finished books that the colony's Arbora made, but instead two protective covers over rough-cut paper, all held together with cording, instead of properly sewn and bound.

"What is this?" Moon asked. He moved towards a brighter spelled light, as he'd been sitting in a cool nook that overlooked the nursery bowers. Watching hatchlings and fledglings frolic, but not having to actually work at taking care of them – he'd just been feeling restless and wanted the soothing ease of the babies. 

"Everything I've ever found about Arbora changing castes," Chime said, and dropped to sit against Moon's side.

"Changing castes?" Moon asked. 

"From hunter to teacher, things like that," Chime said.

"From mentor to warrior, you mean?" That was what Chime would actually have been looking for. It was what everyone at Indigo Cloud would be interested in; they'd adapted to Chime's transformation, but they would never want it to happen again, if they could avoid it. Even Chime's odd and mentor-like foreknowledge of disasters was not worth the disquiet to most of the colony.

"Yes, that too. But changing between one caste of Arbora to another happens much more often." Chime looked away. "Or I've found more records of that."

"How does that even work?" Moon asked. "I mean, once the hatchlings are climbing, everyone knows what they will be, don't they? I thought that's how it works."

"Oh, yes, most of the time, you know as soon as a clutch is talking who is a teacher, who is a hunter, who is a soldier--"

"Who is a mentor."

Chime tilted his head and smiled crookedly. "Mentors can pick the hatchling mentor out of a clutch. It takes a little more time for the other castes to be certain."

"But you said Arbora can change castes?"

"There's mentions of it happening in several of the histories we received in that trade with Garnet Smoke."

"Really?"

"Only in the oldest books. The ones that have been recopied four or five times – once in a book that had been copied six times! – so back before the Time of Great Leaving."

Moon tapped his fingers against his knees. "How can you tell how many times a book has been copied?"

Chime stared at him for a moment, and then gave a soft giggle. "Right, you don't know. It's customary to write your name, your court, and who the ruling queen and her first consort are when you copy out a book, whether for trade or because the book is too old to repair." 

Chime's hands danced, if he was writing out a book himself, "You copy the names of everyone who copied the book before you as well. You can track a book back to its original court that way, if it's been copied for trade. If it's an old book from your own court, you'll know about how old it is."

"Garnet Smoke copied several of the oldest histories they had – theirs and other courts, and some of their daughter-colonies outside the Reaches, where they still have contact with them. I thought, next time there Jade goes on an embassy..." Chime said. 

"You'd like to go and look for more records."

Chime nodded.

"I don't see why not."

"It's an odd thing for a warrior to do."

Moon smiled. "We're an odd court. Every court who has heard of us knows that by now."

"That doesn't help," Chime said.

Moon shrugged, shifting and rising. He was hungry, and wanted to go kill a few grasseaters. "You Raksura don't like things that are different."

Chime followed him, shifting and spreading his own wings. "'You Raksura'? You're Raksura, Moon." 

They leapt into the air, heading towards one of the far platforms. Predators were gone from all but the furthest limbs of the mountain-tree, nowadays. Too much activity near the trunk, too many Raksura who were too able to kill anything that was dangerous.

"Sometimes I'm not," Moon admitted as they landed on a branch above a herd, "inside my head. Sometimes I'm just this groundling who can shift and fly sometimes."

"How does that even work?" Chime said.

"Aren't you a mentor who just has wings, sometimes?"

Chime rubbed his hand over his shoulder spines. "Not as often as I used to be."

"I've seen you go to help the mentors and check yourself," Moon said. He didn't look at Chime. "Your first impulse is--"

"Wrong. It's just wrong. I need to stop."

Moon sighed, and stretched his wings. He brushed Chime's with his own as he settled back down, and let his tail wrap around Chime's. "Some groundlings, they choose what they want to be."

Chime looked up, curious. "What do you mean?"

"Well, the Golden Islanders, for one."

"They have their flying ship."

"But that's not all they do, Chime. That's only one family – one bloodline – and not all of their bloodline flies on their ship. Some of them stay home and raise their children."

"Well, they're teachers, some of them. So?"

Moon shook his head. "They raise their children, and then once their children are grown, they don't have to raise more children. They can do something else."

"What? Do they have a life-cycle, like bees? Teacher, hunter, then soldier?"

"What? What are you talking about?" Moon looked at Chime in confusion.

"Bees. You know, the ones that we get honey from, when we can find a hive? They have three kinds – Queens, like us, and consorts, like us, but they don't have warriors, just bee Arbora, and they change from teachers who raise younger bees, into hunters who find flowers and soldiers who protect their hives. They don't have mentor bees. Are the Golden Islanders like that?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"How does that work? How can any of their colonies work, if no one in them knows what they're meant to do?"

Moon shrugged, and shook out his frills. "It just does, for them. They fit themselves into a caste's role, and then they change to do something else."

"I wish I understood how." Chime shifted back to groundling, and pulled his book of notations out. "If I understood how groundlings just change. And why sometimes Arbora just change..."

"You'd understand why you changed?" Moon bumped his shoulder against Chime's comfortingly.

Chime looked up. "I know it was the colony. That we were failing. I know that. But--"

"Why you?"

"Yes."

"Does it really matter?"

"I don't know. I just..."

"If you look at all the cases you've found, of teachers turning into soldiers, or hunters, does that help anything? Does that knowing that's what bees do help you know how to get honey from a hive better?"

"I don't know that it does," Chime admitted.

"All right."

"But I don't know that it doesn't."

Moon snorted. "And if it might, it's worth trying to find out?"

"Yes."

Moon stretched his wings. "Next time Pearl sends Jade and me on an embassy, you'll come as part of our escort, and I'll support you pestering any mentor we can get to talk to us for even a moment. Come on, I'm hungry. Let's go kill something."

He leapt into the air, climbing up to hover over the herd of grasseaters. After a moment, he heard wingbeats as Chime came up beside him. He was hungry, and warm, and Chime would get to keep asking questions.

For now, he'd leave worries to nest in tree cavities, like bees.


End file.
